Tockinit not horrible nor great

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

brittacarlberg Well, i think i just understood my own taste in musicals a tiny bit better!My best guess for this movie is that it might help to have seen the stage play? For i myself went in blindfolded and boy did i trip on the way through... First the good stuff; i kinda liked the guy playing Roger. The character was unappealing to me - too whiny and brooding for my taste - but the actor did have a voice that i liked and he felt like the only one of the cast that put in emotion and power in his singing. I had an unpleasant feeling with the rest of them, like they were more interested in looking pretty and singing beautifully than conveying emotion, but this one kinda nailed it for me. - Joanne was great too. Good actress, beautiful voice, appealing character, and i have to mention, smoking hot. I liked her! - I liked three of the songs. Not bad for this one! I usually have a painful time trying to find music i like. - The sets were kinda nice in two or three places, especially the main apartment.Angel was a great character that i knew all too little about. The relationship between him and the guy with the hat and the Santa Fe- song was beautiful, despite a lack of buildup. I liked him, but had too little time with him to connect fully with the guy. - The theme. I love the idea to explore the world of bohemians, of unconventional people, of people with aids and how they deal with it emotionally - here thrown into a blender with music to make a movie with endless possibilities! The not so good stuff...1. Most of the songs felt bland and boring to me, with insanely uninteresting choreography and settings, performed by actors that did not put in all that much passion in it all. I felt like that all the way through the movie, with exception for the "One song glory" - the cold metal, huge city and desolate roof matched the theme of the song beautifully. But as for the rest... i'll give an example. Sorry, girl - showing your face between another girls legs and glaring at strangers is not empowering or meaningful here. It could have been, with some buildup - make those strangers explicit homophobes for example, not just random old white guys with money. In this context, it was mostly like a seventeen year old girl proclaiming "I am complex, you know! Look, i can even touch and kiss other girls! I am a girl whom likes girls! Those lesbian people only kiss other girls to get men turned on, right? Did i mention i was complex?!" 2. Most of the characters were bland, stupid, selfish or otherwise annoyed me. I guess Maureen was supposed to be somewhat likable but i kinda wished for her to die in a car accident all the way through... i got the impression of a selfish ... that was all too happy to have other people do everything for her. Get a job and get your head out of your backside, lady. Oh, and Joanne, God - you deserve so much better! Most of the others lacked any kind of grounded personality, so all i had left was my annoyance at those whining slackers.3. The overall message. I am a bit of a hippie myself but by god - Boo Hoo, we are being evicted after living rent free for two years, but screw you in the end because we do not need your charity, we are artists! Artists that haven't produced anything in over a year... GET A JOB YOU LAZY MORONS!!! The message kinda made me angry, yes... 4. A complete absence of any kind of red thread. So.. you saw your friend beneath your window, gave him the key, and show only slight annoyance at the fact that he then disappears for 14 hours? Alright, so you people know each other i guess... and i do not get any kind of emotional connection between a single one of you, you just tell me verbally how you feel about each other. Alright... I guess this Angel guy was the glue that kept all of you together even though you have never shown us that in any way. Sure... By they way, most of you have aids or are HIV-positive. It would have been kinda nice if you had established that Angel was further down the path to death than the rest of you, that way my reaction to his death might have been something more than "Eh?" 5. The songs were just... songs. In Wicked, Defying gravity is a powerful moment were Elphabas desires, frustration and situation finally streams out in a beautiful, powerful and inspiring scene. In Les Miserables, Who am i? is a song where Jean Valjean has to put the peace of his soul and his newfound good nature against his fear of once again going to prison. In Rent, well, some of the songs show how the characters feel - without any kind of buildup, making them lack any kind of punch or emotional impact for my part. My reaction varied from "Okay?" to "What the holy Broadway?" It is not enough for me to see Angel, April or anyone for that matter die - if i do not get a buildup, i will not react to it. And what the... was up with that candle lighting-song? 6. All around, huge wasted opportunity. A musical about a deadly tragic illness, love, trans and gay persons in the 80s, the bohemian life style. This could have been amazing. But for the reasons above, this whole thing completely misses the point for my part.

Christian Writer/ Director Stephen Chbosky gets all the right notes from this acclaimed musical and deep-reaching story and lyrics. The actors and atmosphere of sadness, seduction, friendship, hardship and rebellion shine. The film medium is well used to make a remarkable adaptation, using some of the original cast. Chbosky masters the material and makes a fitting legacy.Based on the late Jonathan Larson's Broadway Musical masterpiece, this film fits well with the 2005 themes of sexual orientation and identity and deals with homosexuality, HIV/AIDS, drugs, relationships, art and bohemian lifestyle in a hard, yet enchanting way. Great music, lyrics and editing. Dark and not for everyone, it is funny with plenty of witticism and likewise endearing. Good signing and acting from a strong ensemble cast. This will have you signing and thinking for a while.

calvinnme I am very surprised at some of the negative reviews for this film. I never saw the Broadway musical on which the movie was based, so I don't have the advantage of having the live performance to compare to the movie. I have to say that the film really touched me, and I generally haven't liked most of the recent musical films that I've seen. All of the songs in Rent have heavy and deep meanings behind them since there's hardly any spoken dialogue. This means that Rent moves forward on the strength of its songs. Each number furthers the plot and reveals another aspect of a character.Playwright Jonathan Larson was an amazing human being with such a talent for - at the time he wrote it back in the early 90's - being so "out there" and taking the risk of writing about AIDS and homosexuality, and ultimately having his work find its way into the hearts of so many people. If you wrote an actual script in which the young author of such a wildly successful Pulitzer winning musical dies the night after its dress rehearsal after being misdiagnosed by two different hospitals, nobody would believe you, but that is exactly what happened. It is also a shame that the actual reality of life in Alphabet City (now very much gentrified) and the nature of the AIDS crisis and treatments have changed so much that many people might not consider this film's greatness because they will regard it as out of date. I guess I just found the movie to be brilliant because it wasn't supposed to be absolutely realistic, it was supposed to evoke emotion, and that it did, at least for me. None of the individual relationships get that much screen time, yet I really cared deeply about all of these characters, both as a group and individually.You could really feel the urgency of time pressing on the characters that had AIDS - the urgency to create, the urgency to love, - since, in 1990, there were not a lot of therapies that effectively prevented HIV from turning into full blown AIDS as there are today. Also, if you are not moved by Collins' tribute to Angel in the reprise performance of "I'll Cover You", all I can say is that you have no soul. Jesse Martin does a splendid job of displaying a genuine sense of loss, grief, and love that is the best performance in the entire movie.Rent is one of those few films that I like to watch over and over just to see if I have missed anything. It does seem like some of the movie's detractors are being a bit snobby about the fact that Chris Columbus, who is well known for directing family films, directed this movie. Unfortunately, Bob Fosse is no longer with us, because I have found myself wondering more than once what he would have done with this material.

john weatherly Rent is about to turn into a rant. First off I realize the power of the realism the creator of this went through and that made me want to love it that much more but what I thought the musical was about was a group of free spirits living in a tight knit community where love and creativity flows as quickly as the problems. Then all the sudden they are unable to make this months RENT! The greedy money grubbing landlord wants to evict these rent controlled hippies so he can convert this area into condos and make a killing. How oh how will they scrounge together the couple hundred dollars to keep the music going? Then the movie starts with them not paying this YEARS rent, after not paying last YEARS rent, and NOT planning on paying next YEARS rent... this took a lot of power out of us viewers finding out that the landlord turned off the power on Xmas. I was astonished!!! He was eating the rent AND paying for utilities for at least two years!!! In New York?!?! My God this man must have been made of money! Past tense seeing how he could afford to keep the lights on anymore so wanting to sell a couple plots of land and possibly get some cash flow going. After all this musical does take place in this universe and this universe does need money to keep turning. So sadly they cant get something for nothing. I enjoyed some of the musical numbers and this is packed full of talent. I just really cant get behind their values. You cant get something for nothing even if someone promised that is exactly what he could give you. if the world is ran by hedonist then the world would be filled with love and music and art for one generation. Then someone needs to provide for these adult children. Parents die, the cash cow cant give milk forever. I really want to be all for love and art, but when it comes time to build their Utopia no one was willing to work for it. Which is fitting for their values. If you want to build a better society you need to be willing to work at it so your children or maybe even your grandchildren can have it. This movie makes me feel bad for working to make the world better for my daughter. I wish it was as easy as saying "I'm going to quit paying for things because the world owes it to her children to take it easy" I really wish that was the way of things but that's why the story is awful. Rent Rant Over. Please see this. This is something that needs to be seen as a cautionary tale. I am probably wrong. Maybe its just a musical.